Ice Broadband steadily becoming even more terrible

TurnipFish

The way I see it is... I've worked as an IT helpdesk technician for several years on 2 "leading" (I know, here come the slaggings) ISPs and I've heard all the excuses, all the complaints, all the morons, all the problems, all the insults and everything else that goes with the job. But, I also learned a great deal from my time with those companies and I can still honestly say that I am happy with that pingtime.

I ran that test shortly before I made the post and the weather outside was terrible. I am on microwave, like everyone else, so I can accept that the ping times and latencies will be higher. This still doesn't change the fact that I rarely play games online, prefering to get together with a bunch of mates, rig up a network and play some hardcore lan games(ping times my ****) with some beers and maybe a pizza or two.

321654

TurnipFish wrote: »

The way I see it is... I've worked as an IT helpdesk technician for several years on 2 "leading" (I know, here come the slaggings) ISPs and I've heard all the excuses, all the complaints, all the morons, all the problems, all the insults and everything else that goes with the job. But, I also learned a great deal from my time with those companies and I can still honestly say that I am happy with that pingtime.

I ran that test shortly before I made the post and the weather outside was terrible. I am on microwave, like everyone else, so I can accept that the ping times and latencies will be higher. This still doesn't change the fact that I rarely play games online, prefering to get together with a bunch of mates, rig up a network and play some hardcore lan games(ping times my ****) with some beers and maybe a pizza or two.

When my Dad had Ice, when it just came into existence he was getting pings to Irish servers of about 15ms.

Then after about a year the whole system went south.

Ive worked in IT myself for 20 years and can honestly say that the rubbish that Ice were trying to explain away their problems had me laughing for years. My old man recorded a lot of it too. He lectures in business studies and plays those recordings as part of his class. I can tell you that noone in his class will ever get Ice.

elvis_2009

321654 wrote: »

When my Dad had Ice, when it just came into existence he was getting pings to Irish servers of about 15ms.

Then after about a year the whole system went south.

Ive worked in IT myself for 20 years and can honestly say that the rubbish that Ice were trying to explain away their problems had me laughing for years. My old man recorded a lot of it too. He lectures in business studies and plays those recordings as part of his class. I can tell you that noone in his class will ever get Ice.

would love to hear some of those,being hering it for a while also did he get permission to play them back to others

321654

elvis_2009 wrote: »

would love to hear some of those,being hering it for a while also did he get permission to play them back to others

Yes, i gave him permission. Whenever i called Ice and was put on hold, so i just said "This call may be recorded for training purposes".

Thats what they do, so whats good for the goose ....

mac07041970

Hi, your only tied to the contract if you get the service you signed up for. I went through ComReg and the company i was with wasnt long about replying when they got involved.

huzy06

mac07041970 wrote: »

Hi, your only tied to the contract if you get the service you signed up for. I went through ComReg and the company i was with wasnt long about replying when they got involved.

I got in contact with comreg in early january after been advised by some on here. I was told to contact ice to lodge a formal complaint and they had ten working days to rectify the problem or to release me from the contract... Nothing. So comreg contacted them and told me that ice would ring me within a day or two. Three weeks later and i hadnt heard anything from them. I rang them on tuesday and after been on hold for over 25 minutes i finally got talking to a sympathetic worker. He fully agrreed with my case and said he would talk to his manager and he would ring my back the next day. Even asked what time would suit, and guess what, still nothing.. I dont know what to do. Im gonna e mail comreg one last time but after that Im out of ideas

MrTimewalk

I am SEETHING with anger here, I rang ONCE AGAIN ICE last week to be told the normal story "Oh yes sir we are upgrading the network it will be faster on friday", I tested it this evening and it was. running at an unbelieveable 2-4mb..... EXCEPT, it now has a ping time of 200-500ms. WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE DOING? I can only assume they are now using satelite as what else would give good download but poor ping. I AM SICK OF THIS COMPANY, SICK TO MY STOMACH, I RANG THEM AGAIN AND NO WAY I COULD GET THROUGH TO the helpdesk.

I am paying these people €70 a month for a 4mb connection for over a year since there is no other service in county Limerick and they go from bad to worse. They're gamer package which allowed you to play games (although not on all servers) is now totally useless. Has anyone else gotten this?

321654

MrTimewalk wrote: »

I am SEETHING with anger here, I rang ONCE AGAIN ICE last week to be told the normal story "Oh yes sir we are upgrading the network it will be faster on friday", I tested it this evening and it was. running at an unbelieveable 2-4mb..... EXCEPT, it now has a ping time of 200-500ms. WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE DOING? I can only assume they are now using satelite as what else would give good download but poor ping. I AM SICK OF THIS COMPANY, SICK TO MY STOMACH, I RANG THEM AGAIN AND NO WAY I COULD GET THROUGH TO the helpdesk.

I am paying these people €70 a month for a 4mb connection for over a year since there is no other service in county Limerick and they go from bad to worse. They're gamer package which allowed you to play games (although not on all servers) is now totally useless. Has anyone else gotten this?

Everybody eventually has the same story with Ice broadband.

You could write a script.

Marlow

MrTimewalk wrote: »

running at an unbelieveable 2-4mb..... EXCEPT, it now has a ping time of 200-500ms. WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE DOING? I can only assume they are now using satelite as what else would give good download but poor ping.

No, if it was satelite, it would be more like 1000-2000 ms. 200-500 ms comes from poorly engineered wireless links, a over-contended basestation or the attempt to run non-line of sight links with line of sight kit, but that would also result in packet loss. It's a bit like high interleaving on ADSL1. Not really a solution for quality, but at least the speed is there.

/M

MrTimewalk

Thanks for the info. I feel like Basil Fawlty when he hired O'Reilly builders to do his building work

Farguc

Omg , I have exacly same problem when I started using it , it was terrible, but I have no other choice, but to use it . Tho after few weeks it was grand , ocasionally it would go slow (for like half an house maybe once a month) but other than that it would be atleast 2mb ddl and 6-7 hundred kb upload. But , like 3 weeks ago(maybe lesS) it just died , now I havent had internet since then , I mean 200kb ddl !!!! If I only could I would get chorus , cause I had it when I lived in town and it was brilliant , I mean cheap and no limits ,and it was 2,5 at its lowest (out of 3mb back then) yes it was a bit taggy sometimes(it died for like a week once) but atleast they compensated that week by giving 50% off our next payment.

MrTimewalk

I am sick and tired of this company, I was off today and rang them again and again and eventually got to someone who appeared to know that they were talking about. I explained the problem with their "upgrade" whereby the ping is now 300-900ms. They 'fixed' the problem and now lo and behold ONCE AGAIN it's back at 300ms. I am SICK of doing business with these clowns. IF you are considering getting ICE BB here's some advice, DO NOT EVER DO BUSINESS WITH THESE PEOPLE, THEY ARE EITHER INCAPABLE OF DELIVERING ON THEIR SERVICE OR ARE SIMPLE DEFRAUDING THEIR CUSTOMERS. I HAVE TRIED WITHOUT SUCCESS FOR OVER A YEAR TO GET THE BASIC PACKAGE THEY HAVE TOLD ME THEY CAN SUPPLY TO NO AVAIL. AT THIS STAGE I HAVE MADE OVER 100 CALLS, COMPLAINED, CONTACTED COM REG ALL TO NO AVAIL.


DO NOT EVER CONSIDER SIGNING UP TO ICE BB, THEY ARE NOT A BB COMPANY, if they were they would provide BB

kaiser sauze

Two different speedtests wihthin moments of each other, with wildly different results. How accurate are these results?

This was done while I was on Skype and torrenting.

TurnipFish

Well...

I just tried a test and I'm satisfied with my result.

sifinn

hows it going mr timewalk, i have ice's "gamer" ( laughing ) pack, they r just dreadful, i have no other option in my area but to use them, i am big into online gaming & i am complaning to them 51 weeks now, yep you read that right, i got comreg involved in oct and NOTHING has improved, NOTHING will either, my issue is the ping times and they say we upgrading ta the min, comreg themselves will tell you they cannot really do anything to ice, so i just about given up now at this stage!!

sifinn

check out me gaming pack!!!!!!!!!

maninaskirt

I know how you guys feel but hang in there and keep moaning, but be civil about it, I went from this

To this for the last 6 months, except the odd issue like once a month or less..



I spent a fortune on phonecalls and my time used up too to get this resolved, very frustrating at the time but once I got to speak to the correct individuals I got a great service from them...I hope I'm have not jinxed myself now...

murkle

Listen people this ice is a joke and needs to get sorted because they are ripping all of us off I am getting very bad sppeds and ping. I have wasted all my time ringing them and wasted alot of credit.

Now if any one wants this joke to stop what you need to do is get on to Con Reg they regulate the licences for them. What i have been told is if ice dont cope on there gone.

Please try do this because there ripping us all off.

Thanks gang

bartificer

murkle wrote: »

Listen people this ice is a joke and needs to get sorted because they are ripping all of us off I am getting very bad sppeds and ping. I have wasted all my time ringing them and wasted alot of credit.

Now if any one wants this joke to stop what you need to do is get on to Con Reg they regulate the licences for them. What i have been told is if ice dont cope on there gone.

Please try do this because there ripping us all off.

Thanks gang

I don't want to rain on your parade, but do you really think it's that simple? Do you really think no one here has contact ComReg? I know I have, and I know others have too.

ComReg point-blank told me they do not have the authority to regulate broadband, "it is an un-regulated industry" apparently. Maybe things have changed in the last year, but that's what I was told around this time last year while I was going through my personal ICE hell.

By all means, I think people should contact ComReg just to keep pressure on them to point out the demand for broadband regulation to the government. But I really don't expect to see much happening soon.

Bart.

daveharnett

murkle wrote: »

Listen people this ice is a joke and needs to get sorted because they are ripping all of us off I am getting very bad sppeds and ping. I have wasted all my time ringing them and wasted alot of credit.

Now if any one wants this joke to stop what you need to do is get on to Con Reg they regulate the licences for them. What i have been told is if ice dont cope on there gone.

Please try do this because there ripping us all off.

Thanks gang

Been there, done that.

comreg wrote: »

...Comreg’s role is to open the channel of communication between the customer and operator.

Please note that there is no minimum service level for broadband...

MrTimewalk

ICE has been down since last thur in Murroe. I rang them and they said "are you in Limerick?" which I assume means there's more than just Murroe down. Apeasement engineer said, "it will be fixed this evening" that was thur, then fri, then sat, they won't answer their phones sunday. Assume they don't have engineers working at weekends so if a problem occurs you have to put up with no BB until the next week. It's a joke.

In answer to someone in an earlier post about having a good speed, I understand they have limited bandwidth and give it to people who kick up enough of a fuss (at the cost of those who don't)

on another note has ANYONE ever gotten a call back from them from an 'engineer' ? I couldn't tell you how many times I've been told 'an engineer will ring you back'. has anyone ever gotten to speak to a manager? None of which are EVER available when you ring.

MrTimewalk

ICE still down, I rang a few times yesterday and was told, the problem is being looked at. It's only a suggestion but I think it would help a lot if they stopped looking at problems and started fixing them.

MrTimewalk

got a text from ICE BB to tell me ICE BB is back up and working in my area. If by working they mean a ping of 700ms then it's working a treat.

emmbaasee

Oh my god..:eek: Thought i was the only one having any problems with Ice broadband but i've just found this thread and im shocked at the carry on of this company. Shame on Comreg for allowing this to happen to ordinary people. ICE BROADBAND ARE A DISGRACE.

FastGuy

MrTimewalk wrote: »

got a text from ICE BB to tell me ICE BB is back up and working in my area. If by working they mean a ping of 700ms then it's working a treat.

Anyway you can open bebo Now But seriously 700ms for WISP is bad bad bad ... And downtime few days ?!"?! Ehhh money money, probably they faierd engginers so problems stay in queue !

bobbbb

I hear Ice broadband and Comreg are actually one and the same.

bigpaddy2004

bobbbb wrote: »

I hear Ice broadband and Comreg are actually one and the same.

Could you elaborate more on that please?

bobbbb

bigpaddy2004 wrote: »

Could you elaborate more on that please?

Read all about it here.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sarcasm

bigpaddy2004

bobbbb wrote: »

Read all about it here.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sarcasm

You done a very bad job of making it even sound like sarcasm.

huzy06

sifinn wrote: »

hows it going mr timewalk, i have ice's "gamer" ( laughing ) pack, they r just dreadful, i have no other option in my area but to use them, i am big into online gaming & i am complaning to them 51 weeks now, yep you read that right, i got comreg involved in oct and NOTHING has improved, NOTHING will either, my issue is the ping times and they say we upgrading ta the min, comreg themselves will tell you they cannot really do anything to ice, so i just about given up now at this stage!!

Hey. What u have to do is write to them. Physically and post it. Say that you have had enough and you want to be released from your contract and they must wave the disconnection fee because of the breach of contract on their part. It worked for me after I had been complaining to them for three months and had comreg involved.. Hope this helps you